I fainted for the first time in my 71 years of life yesterday morning. Evidently, a combination of having low blood pressure and heart rate, getting out of bed too quickly, and dehydration caused that drop in blood flow to the brain. Went to the urgent care, where, after a CT Scan and other tests, they determined I was most likely fine.
It does give you pause to experience a sudden loss of consciousness, even if only for a few seconds. Of course, you experience it when you sleep every night, and I’ve been under general anesthesia before, but both of those were things I chose rather than something that just happened to me. I suppose the lesson is that, in the end, life is out of our control, although we can influence it somewhat.
But what I feel most deeply is vulnerability. Not only to the great forces of the universe—obviously—but also to the little things within my body. It’s as if we barely exist; the barrier between being and non-being barely exists at all.
Our software depends on our hardware.
(Note. I eat a whole foods plant-based diet, weigh the same 135 lbs that I did in college, walk 5 or 6 miles, or go to the gym and lift weights and do aerobic exercise every day. I have little stress, great personal relationships, and get good sleep. Just goes to show we can influence but not control our lives.)
I think this must have been a great shock to you, since it was your first time, and you’re 71. When I was young (late teenager), this happened to me, and my sister and I laughed about it. I woke up late, jumped out of bed very quickly, and, as you explained, my heart rate and blood pressure were low, so I crashed into the closet. I thought it was a pretty weird (but cool) feeling at the time. I’ve gotten light-headed a couple of times over the decades from similar situations. Since I’m in good physical shape (enjoy exercising), I never took it too seriously, and understanding the reason sure helped. Wish you good health!
I hope you get well entirely and never live the same powerlessness again. Apparently, we need to live through experiences like these to better understand the lives of our own and others better. So, I hope even better articles will follow. 🙂
thanks . JGM
thanks Randall. JGM
Glad you are OK John,
God Bless….
This definitely brings to mind Epictetus,
This has also happened to me also,
nearly home after running up a long-hill on a long-run ,
early in the morning on the descent nearly blacked out,
but recovered and made it home in the early morning of darkness.
God Bless you John
Speaking as your senior (I’m all of 75), I can anti-reassure you that the feeling of vulnerability only gets worse with age. I work outside on good days. Earlier this week I finished repairing my covered bridge that a worker crashed into. Today I finished rebuilding the plumbing at the wellhead, a frustrating and tedious task. Sometime you should try rebuilding the plumbing for a check valve, a pressure gauge, a pump controller, a pressure tank, a water filter, and two control valves inside a circular brick structure 42 inches in diameter. Whatever exhilaration is, this is its antithesis. After all this virtuous hard work, I have been utterly exhausted each day. I have little stamina nowadays.
Then there’s the loss of agility. I used to dance through the forest bearing a running chainsaw, easily recovering from every ground-level vine, hidden stump, or hole that attempted to hinder my progress. This year, for the first time in my life, I have been tripped in the forest by these traps. “What the hell am I doing face-down on the forest floor?” My wife forced me to stop clearing the leaves and pine needles off the roof every spring; she hired a company to handle the task. I’m embarrassed even though I know she’s right. She bought a log splitter so that I wouldn’t mess up my back splitting rounds with a maul. She was right about that, too. It’s a good thing that I have an assertive wife to overrule my masculine pride.
Then there are three friends who, in the last two months, have fallen and broken bones requiring hospital stays and lengthy recovery. I’ve been looking over my shoulder, fearing that whatever got them is coming for me. Looking back over my shoulder will probably cause me to trip, fall, and break some bones.
All this has led my wife and I to one firm conclusion: we damn well better get any travel done soon, because it won’t be long before we won’t be able to do so. She likes to go on cruises with her sister, which are horrifyingly expensive to a cheapskate like me, but she worked all her life, and she deserves it.
Best of luck surviving old age. Just remember: in the long run, you’ll die. You have yourself a NICE day! 😛
thanks. JGM
thanks much. JGM
Falls are one of the worst things to happen to us older folk. I work on my balance every day but I’m sure I’m fighting entropy and my system will eventually lose. As for travel, Jane and I feel the same way the only problem is we can’t afford travel:)
Food for thought: Hyponatremia occurs when the sodium (table salt) level in your blood falls below the normal range, and passing out can be one consequence. I had a fainting incident, and I noticed afterward that I might not be eating enough sodium, so, among the measures I’ve taken since then is to pay attention to my sodium intake and to increase that intake when necessary. I haven’t had any more fainting incidents since then, though I don’t really know if low sodium had anything to do with it.
Your statement that “our software depends on our hardware” struck a chord.
As the years go by, I often think of how we cannot escape our biology.
Where is the division? I no longer think there is one.
If angry or upset….I feel it in my body.
And so on.
Grateful that your fainting seems to be a “one-off” event. I hope so.
But it is sobering to watch ourselves decline. Just as we observed, over the years, others we have known.
The wheel keeps turning, and I resent it.
I may as well attempt to “command the waves”.
I think I’m in charge of myself and then, bingo, my consciousness gone because not enough blood to the brain. All those thoughts over the years depend on heart, brain, muscle, lungs, etc. etc. We are so at the mercy of life.
thanks for sharing Lyle, always enjoy reading your comments.
Sonnet 65 by William Shakespeare:
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea
But sad mortality o’er-sways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O, how shall summer’s honey breath hold out
Against the wrackful siege of batt’ring days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong, but time decays?
O fearful meditation! where, alack,
Shall time’s best jewel from time’s chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
O, none, unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.
thanks for this; I had forgotten it. Everything dies but in writing beauty and goodness can be preserved.
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
(From a poem by Dylan Thomas)
A poem I know well. Thanks for reminding me of it.
Dylan Thomas: Rage or Resignation?
“Make war upon this bloody tyrant Time.”
(Shakespeare, Sonnet 16)